Birthday Recap

Well my birthday has come and gone, but it was a time well spent at Timmy Nolan's! The pictures were great and I think we're gonna have to make some room on 'the wall' to honor people who aren't currently represented.

Many of my gifts that I received will assist me in my acting/self-producing pursuits.

Tripod - Thanks Libbis (real name = Elizabeth), this is EXACTLY the 3-legged upgrade that I needed. We'll use it on our 2 shoots that we need to do before the "No Budget Festival".

Boxing 'stuff' - Cynthia and Karyn owners of RPM Fitness Studio, got me the gear to handle the new boxing section of the Bootcamp that they run and that Mindy and I are a part of. The gloves have also inspired me to write something that could use the boxing gloves as a prop.

Holdon Log - Kristina and Brian, the owners of HoldOn Log gave me one of their organizing books. They also told me that their software will soon support PocketPC! This is great news for all y'all who don't use Palm but need to get organized.

Pretty Blue Shirt - Jason and Steffanie (of Stormmaker Productions) got me a very cool blue shirt. It is now 'officially' the gift that keeps on giving, because we left it in their Explorer. :|

Rebel Without a Crew - This book by Robert Rodriguez was given to me by our bootcamp buddy Marti H. I've heard stories about this book, but have never read it. He apparently made a feature with VERY limited funds and should be a big 'ole inspiration to me!

Real wood frame & Significant Others Episode - Our friend Jessica (we call her Hesika)got me the frame with a quote from one of our creative/funny moments. She also was a ROCK STAR and found me the one episode of Significant Others on Bravo that I missed. Significant Others is completely improvised and I want to do some of my stuff that way...maybe now one of things that I do for "No Budget" will have to be improvised.

PIZZA - Mindy got me some Chicago style pizzas delivered in dry ice. We're on an eating regimine so they'll have to wait a few weeks, but they will be a big bright light at the end of the tunnel.

XBox "stuff" - We bought XBox Live about a week earlier and Mindy supplemented that with another game. I've already used XBox in one thing that I've shot...everything is useable when you got Noooooooooo Budget! :)

DVD - Mindy also got me "The Office" on DVD...a funny BBC improvised comedy about working in a corporate office. We also got "Miracle" about the 1980 Team USA Hockey team...inspirational.

Electronic Football Game - Our own Kelly got me this. It's not really entertainment related, but it might help me pass the time on a set in the near future! Kelly also brought our old pal that we never see Lisa Loo.

Fry's $$$ - Our sometimes long lost friend Kim got me a gift cert for one of my fav stores. It will definitely be used for something related to career enhancement. Maybe to help buy a Compact Flash card for my digital camera or towards Roxio Easy Media Creator to put this stuff on DVD for y'all! We also met Kim's new boy and he seems great.

and finally....

THE BIG ONE! - On Saturday, Mindy and I went to see Troy through the SAG Film Society and then we went to BestBuy. While at BestBuy, we got a new digital camera, the Canon Digital EOS Rebel - SLR. This will help me elevate my love of photography to a more professional level. In fact, I'm going to start doing headshots...FREE SHOOTING SESSONS. If you like the pics, I'll get you a CD of images and I'll post 'em on the web for $100. I'd like to morph my computer biz with actor promotions (photography, postcard design, picture resume's, web sites, etc.) The deal was great too...we got a 10% off coupon, a $50 gift card, plenty of Reward Zone Points and a REALLY great camera!

I'm truly blessed, but the best part was seeing everyone. Catching up with some of the people is such a rare event that the fact that they came out made it an event! Other people we only see in their workout mode, so we got to see them all cleaned up rather than the sweaty 6am version that we're used to. :P